Jack comes up behind me again and lays a careful hand on my shoulder. “You can’t pretend it didn’t happen.”
“Pretend what didn’t fucking happen?”
“Vinnie.”
So he does know his name. I don’t know why it matters, but it does.
“Mal, it wasn’t your fault.”
“How the fuck would you know?”
“Orion came to see me before he shipped out again.” Jack lets his hand fall. “I can’t remember everything he said?—”
“He had no fucking business saying anything.”
“He’s your friend.”
“Exactly.”
“Exactly what?” Jack frowns, genuine confusion creasing his face, but I see the buried deep part of him that wants to throttle me too. “You weren’t here and I couldn’t get to you. He came to make sure I had all the information I needed to take care of you.”
I laugh, bitter and cold, dragging the sound from the pit of my soul. “Fucking hell.”
“What? You hate it that much that your friends give a fuck about you?”
Yes.
No.
Yes.I picture my phone abandoned on the windowsill. Raven and Orion are deployed. I can’t talk to them. Can’t check they’re okay after the shitshow they survived too. Moth’s not, though, and I’ve been dodging his calls for weeks.
Months.
My vision clouds again, all the good work of Jack’s company undone by his gentle scrutiny, byhimgiving a shit too, and I need away from him as much as I needed to escape the bar.
Below us, a door opens and shuts and I hear the footsteps of two people on the stairs.
Sol.
Skylar.
Panic flares and my pulse rockets to the same clusterfuck from before, except it’s louder this time, and I realise the thunder I heard downstairs was something else. Something worse,and the noise becomes this insidious fuckingthingI can’t think my way out of.
Jack’s blocking my path and I don’t have it in me to shove him aside.
I plead with him instead. “Let me go.”
“What?”
“Move. I need out.”
It takes Jack longer than it should to compute what I mean, but understanding—empathy—floods his gaze the second he does, and he steps aside without question.
But not without parting words that make me wish he really had just throttled me. “Don’t run from this. Stay where we can reach you.”
We.
He means him and Sol, but it’s Skylar’s name that echoes in my head as I bolt from the kitchen and make it across the landing a heartbeat before whoever hit the staircase first steps out of the narrow space.